Wednesday, October 20, 2010

FAKE BLOG IN OUR MIDST

Investigating blogs for plagiarism is long, hard work. I’ve been helping with this tedious task and during my research a few new/fake blogs have popped up. I know the MO because they look and read exactly like the others I’ve been researching. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these new/fake blogs are following the same pattern as the old/fake blogs. They have set patterns, ones I won’t get into here because it could jeopardize the on-going investigation. However, I want to let everyone know about one of these new/fake blogs.

But before I do that I want every blogger to know that I am in no way trying to stifle freedom of speech. I just want to stop the plagiarizing of other’s work. Stealing is wrong. And if anyone knows anything about plagiarism, it normally goes hand in hand with copyright violation. So, the person who is setting up these fake blogs can continue his/her real blog, just stopwith thefake blogs.

Without further ado:

Grandma ZaZa's Opinion is a fake blog. I know this because her persona was taken from Yahoo Answers. She can’t be reached by either IM or email and has no real picture. It was easy after that to set up a blog using her name, post 27 blog posts in a matter of 8 days, and then proceed to visit other communities and write comments to try and prove she was real. Grandma ZaZa is in fact real, but the blog Grandma ZaZa is not, because 20 out of 27 posts have been stolen from other sources all over the internet—sources that the other fake blogs I have been researching also used for plagiarizing. Coincidence? (You tell me if 98 fake blogs are coincidence.) Also read the foul language that Grandma uses in her posts. A woman doesn’t normally use such language—a man, however, does.

Here is a complete list of the blog posts that Grandma ZaZa has stolen. You be the judge:

Three months ago on Yahoo Answers the real Grandma ZaZa answers a question about the Ground Zero Mosque. The fake ZaZa not only cuts and pastes that answer onto her blog but also James' answer as well to produce this blog post.

Now she's getting more daring, stealing the article plus comment by billyc for this post.

BEWARE bloggers this post was taken from a disgusting blog called Obama is a bitch. The blog is not set up with individual blog titles but by date and this post was taken from the one dated 9/12/10 posted by blog1713. Again, read at your own discretion, the posts are long and the language extremelyfoul. A lady, not to mention grandmother, wouldn't want to read this let alone use that kind of language! (faggots? Really, Grandma??)

Grandma feels that Al Gore and global warming are a hoax, and therefore bad, but has no problem being a hoax herself as she copies from this site and pastes it onto her blog and passes it off as her own work.

Grandma tried to pull a fast one, but I'm a sleuth, so I found it. On Oct 16th she posted on Yahoo Answers to make it look like her blog post from Oct 17th wasn't stolen from RacerJim's comment posted on October 14th @ 10:09 am. My goodness, so much time wasted trying not to look fake.

Here's another where she adds and removes words from comments by USARetired and Lumpy1 's, but it's still plagiarism.

This post she actually pieces together 3 comments from this site. See LynnS, comment #13, JD, comment #3, and Jack, comment #1. Talk about work! Wouldn't it be easier to just write your own post?

Oh it's lame, alright. When you have to copy from felixthe, comment #15, and try to pass it off as your own blog post!

Now this post took extra, extra work. It was copied from 2 sites. The first here plus comment by buffpilot and the second here comments #8 by 101ABN and #11 by Whitehall. Again, it would be easier to razz on Mrs. Obama using your ownwords, don't you think? Or maybe Grandma ZaZa has no original thoughts in her 55 year young head.

And finally we have Grandma's latest post about Whoppi and Joy Behar. Guess where she got that post? From Matthew's comment here.

There you have it, the evidence. As I said, I don't want to stifle any free speech. But how dare anyone steal someone's intellectual work or comments and pass them off as an original blog post? What is wrong with this person?

Amazing work, Sleuth! If there were a Pulitzer Prize for this effort, you'd win hands down.

Thank you for your efforts. As bloggers, we believe we are all entitled to express our honest opinions on our blogs, but what you've exposed is not opinion it is fakery and dishonesty that demeans all bloggers.

These blogs are nothing more than cyber graffiti of the sort one sees scrawled on bus station walls. They're meaningless and serve no purpose except to make the blog owner look like a desperate loser.

zaza told me to Google her so I did, she did steal the identity of the real grandmazaza and then proceeded to sign up with Yahoo answers on 10.16.2010 so as to THINK we believe she has been there all along. What a dumbass! Mal to me is a dangerous person if he goes to these lengths. Maybe he's a prisoner? How would a normal working person have so much time on their hands to do these fake blogs?

Sue: I about had a heartattack! I thought at first Grandma ZaZa meant she was going to start a whole new blog!

The thing about these blogs is they "appear" normal when you read them one at a time. But after reading them side by side by side by side, etc., you see numerous patterns. There is NO way these blogs aren't connected.

You are right, whomever set the old bogus blogs up and whomever is setting up the new ones has tons of time on their hands, because I know how much time it's taking me just to research them, that's why I need help.

If I didn't have a 3 yr old here 4 days a week then I would help you. I just want you to be safe because this is sounding scary to me. Who is behind these fake blogs and why are they doing them is the question. Also, have you uncovered any liberal fake blogs?

About Me

Plagiarism is unethical; copyright infringement is illegal. Write using your own intellectual thoughts and/or make sure you give proper attribution when you use another's or don't write at all. Because if you steal another's written word--I'll be there to expose you to the blogging world.